


dead men tell no tales

by shadowdance



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon, Spoilers, and during canon too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 13:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowdance/pseuds/shadowdance
Summary: ("You are nothing like Glenn.")Felix, and life without his brother.





	dead men tell no tales

i.

“What was the last thing Glenn said?”

Dimitri’s whole body stiffens. Felix stuffs his hands into his pockets, anger burning a hole through his chest. No, not anger—something like curiosity. A right to know. A _need _to know.

“Felix,” his father cautions, but Felix doesn’t hear him. Doesn’t listen to him, really.

“Dima, tell me, please.” His voice is shaking. “What did Glenn say?”

Dimitri’s shoulders hike up. “Felix—”

“I have to know! Dima—”

Dimitri is starting to shake. There is still blood on his hands, Felix realizes, and it could be Glenn’s blood. Glenn, who died a mere hour ago; Glenn, his body is already decaying, his heart already shriveling, his spirit long gone. Glenn is long gone.

And Felix needs to know.

“Dimitri,” Felix says, and his voice breaks. “_What did Glenn say?”_

(He means: _did he mention me?)_

Dimitri’s gaze is hollow, almost empty; he is a shell of the boy Felix hangs out with. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and then a sob wracks through his body. He bends over, and Rodrigue attends to him. Felix backs away, until he feels his body hit a wall, and slides down against it.

_What did you say, brother? _He thinks dully, watching Dimitri sob in his seat. _Did you remember your little brother?_

He will never know. 

ii. 

Felix spends his time in his room, mostly alone. His head is full of many thoughts, none of which make sense, but all consist of _Glenn Glenn Glenn Glenn Glenn._ Nothing makes sense and his brother’s name is the thing that grounds him, drags him to the center of the earth. Glenn, steady and sharp but kind, who lost his footing in the world, who is still the thing to keep Felix grounded.

_Where are you now, Glenn? _Felix thinks, staring up at the ceiling. _Why did you have to leave?_

He doesn’t open the door for anyone—not that anyone comes. Dimitri is still weak, and Rodrigue is all but hovering over him. He has not yet asked his son _are you okay, _and this is something that leaves a bitter taste in Felix’s mouth. He doesn’t need a busybody, someone who fusses over him like a baby. He just needs to hear that one question—_are you okay_—from his father, and it never comes. He never comes.

Sylvain stops by frequently, but Felix ignores his incessant knocking. _Go to Ingrid, _he finally snaps, after the knocking grows too loud. _She’s grieving too._

So Sylvain doesn’t enter the room. He might wait outside of it—Felix knows he does—but he never comes in. For the most part, Felix is alone in his room. He is alone.

Just like Glenn.

At least he is like his brother now, Felix thinks bitterly.

iii. 

  
Rodrigue says, “You should become a knight.”

Felix looks up from his plate. For once, he and Rodrigue are having dinner alone, but it isn’t right. It isn’t comfortable, not when there’s a ghost sitting between them, the weight of his name too heavy to speak.

“Why?” Felix snorts. Rodrigue shrugs.

“It is fitting, you know. To follow in your brother’s footsteps—”

It’s always this. Felix’s heart goes cold.

“Oh yeah,” he snorts, scraping his fork against his plate. “Follow the path of a knight, huh? Look how well that turned out for Glenn. Now he’s six feet under the ground.”  
  
“Felix!” Rodrigue sounds—shocked. Felix rolls his eyes.

“What’s wrong? You know Glenn would’ve said something like that.”

“He died like a true knight. There is nothing to be ashamed of that.”

Felix’s stomach roils. He’s heard this, over and over; _he died like a true knight. He died a hero. Do not be upset. _They’ve said it at the funeral, at the castle; the words seem to follow Felix like another kind of ghost, some kind of ghostly phantom.

“No,” he says, and he watches Rodrigue’s face contort. “I’m not going to become a stupid knight so I can be taught how to die. Look at Glenn, Dad. Look.”

Rodrigue presses his lips tightly together. “Your future—”

“Stop projecting Glenn’s future onto mine!” Felix slams his hands on the table. This anger—he has felt it before, burning lowly in his heart. Now it kindles at full first, charging up his words. They’re cruel, and he should keep them held back, but they spill out of his lips without warning. “I am not Glenn. I am not a knight. I’m _not_ him. Look at me for who I am!”

Rodrigue is silent. He appraises Felix, breathing very hard, and disappointment flashes on his face. He says, very quietly, “You are _nothing_ like Glenn.”

The way he says it—filled with a quiet kind of disgust—slices right through Felix’s heart. He knows what his father thought of his brother; _a loyal comrade, brave and strong and powerful, a true knight. _

Felix is none of that.

“Just tell me I’m weak, Father,” Felix says, and his tone is somehow strong still. “That would hurt less.”

He turns on his heel and storms out of the room, grief choking his chest, tears burning in his eyes.

Rodrigue does not follow.

iv. 

Sometimes Felix dreams of his brother.

He doesn’t tell anyone this. He knows what dreams do to people—he watches them poison Dimitri, even when he’s awake, and he watches how they change him, twist him into something unrecognizable on the battlefield. Felix knows.

So when people ask him, _do you think of Glenn, do you dream of Glenn, _he says _he doesn’t haunt me. _Not exactly wrong, but not exactly true. Anyway, one of Dimitri’s ghosts is Glenn, apparently. If Felix were cruel enough, he’d scorn that Glenn would rather haunt the prince than his own brother. Something like that.

But sometimes Glenn comes to him, in his dreams. And he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, eyes flat and emotionless, face calm in an empty way. It’s really unsettling, because—his whole life, Felix has seen Glenn smirking or rolling his eyes or scowling, but never—still. Never so still.

“What do you want?” Felix asks. His voice seems to echo in the spaces between. Glenn does not say anything.

Sometimes Felix wants to ask him what his last words were. What his last thoughts were. Did he think of Dimitri, who would live to be the sole survivor, and the weight that would carry with him? Did he think of Ingrid, of the girl he was supposed to marry, the girl he was going to fall in love with? Did he think of Rodrigue, who practically showered him in adoration?

_Did you think of me?_

Felix wants to ask Glenn every time. But Glenn doesn’t speak. He’s just a figment of Felix’s imagination, anyway—so all Felix would be doing is asking himself, if he were to go by technicalities. And he does not have any answers.

So Felix gazes at his brother’s blank face, and when he wakes up, Glenn isn’t there. Hasn’t been there in a long time.

v. 

Felix turns fourteen on one cold morning. It is the first birthday that Glenn isn’t there, the first birthday Felix scorns his father when he tries wishing him happy birthday, the first birthday where Dimitri is filled with his ghosts and grief.

It’s the worst birthday, in other words. But it won’t be the last. 

Felix wishes, not for the first time, that Glenn was here. But it’s more for selfish reasons than anything else. He wishes Glenn would laugh at him, ruffle his hair, joke that he’s grown a little taller. He wishes Glenn would come back and help Dimitri, hold his hand out, be the ideal knight everyone claims he was. He wishes Glenn was sixteen and _here_.

But Glenn isn’t. And he won’t ever be here again. That, Felix thinks, is the saddest knight’s tale he’s heard.

Felix is now one year younger than Glenn, and Glenn should be sixteen. He should always be two years ahead, two steps ahead, but Felix is catching up to him and Glenn won’t be able to do anything. Felix will turn fifteen and they’ll be the same age and Glenn won’t be here. And then Felix will grow, age _past _his older brother, and it’s something he never thought he’d see. But he will, and he does.

He turns fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen without his brother. And he will turn eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two without his brother.

Felix’s birthday passes and he grows one year older.

Glenn’s birthday passes and nothing happens.

Time drags on. It doesn’t wait for either of them, for anything. And even though Felix pleads in his heart—_slow down, I don’t want to grow without him_—time does not listen. Time sweeps him along in their current, and leaves Glenn back in the past—young, dead, and so frightfully alone.

vi. 

“Boar prince.”  
  
Felix does not like talking to Dimitri anymore; Dimitri is not the same as he once was, after all. That, and sometimes he feels like he can see Glenn in Dimitri’s eyes, see how he’s haunting him. It’s weird. Felix doesn’t like it.

But he has to ask this question, and Dimitri is better than he was, older and calmer. He’s not the same, of course, but Felix knows he might answer this now.

“Felix!” Dimitri’s gaze lights up, but Felix scowls, and the light dims from his eyes. “What do you need?”

Felix curls his hands into fists.

“It’s about Glenn.”

Dimitri’s smile wilts.

“Was he afraid?”

This was not the question Felix meant to ask. It surprises him, the moment it leaps from his lips. Dimitri looks surprised, too, although the pain comes next; he winces, turning away. Felix almost feels bad, but he also feels a little angry, or something. Dimitri isn’t the only one grieving, after all these years, but he is the only one who receives all the pity. Only one person has ever asked Felix if he is okay, in the timespan of four years, and it wasn’t anyone in his family.

“I…” Dimitri hesitates. “Do you want the truth?”

“Why else would I be asking you?”

Dimitri swallows, painfully. Felix tries to pretend his heart isn’t going to break out of his chest.

“At the end,” Dimitri says quietly. “Seconds before his last breath. I think he was.”

This is the worst thing he could have said. Yet Felix knew it, somewhere in his heart. It doesn’t stop the impending grief, threatening to wash over him.

“But he was very brave,” Dimitri adds, like that means anything, like it should resonate with Felix. “To the end, he was—”

“You think I care?” Felix snaps, and he hates how much his voice wobbles. Dimitri stops; Felix draws in a sharp breath. He drags an elbow over his face, pretending to wipe away his sweat. Pretending that the wetness on his sleeve isn’t tears.

“That’s all. Thank you for your service, _boar prince_.” He sweeps down in a mocking bow. Dimitri hesitates.

“Felix—”

But Felix is already turning around and walking off. Already going away.

Just like Glenn.

vii. 

Felix does not tell anyone this, but when the war begins to loom its shadow, when Dimitri’s ghosts start clinging to him even tighter, he starts dreaming about Glenn more frequently.

Nothing happens, of course. Glenn still does not speak, and Felix still has no answers for anything. So all he does is stare at Glenn, and Glenn stares back. Waiting.

It’s strange now. Felix was nothing like Glenn, as much as it hurts; Rodrigue was right. But looking at Glenn in his dreams makes Felix feel like he’s looking at a mirror. His words are just as sharp as Glenn’s now, his hair almost as long as Glenn’s; their eyes have always been the same.

The only problem is that Felix is the older one. Felix has the years on him now, the wisdom, the experience. He had always looked up to Glenn, but now Felix is the one who knows more. Who will always know more.

And he isn’t Glenn. Because Glenn, if he were alive, would help Dimitri. He would dig his heels in and stop this impending war, or try to catch it in his own two fists. He would know the right words to comfort the boar prince, know the right way to defend the world, know exactly what to do and Felix—

Felix would watch. He would follow his brother. He would know his role.

But Glenn isn’t alive, and Felix is not Glenn, no matter what he looks like now. He cannot stop Dimitri’s ghosts from pulling at his soul; he cannot form the best plan to stop Edelgard; he cannot figure out what he needs to do. What he _wants _to do.

Felix doesn’t know.

“Glenn,” he says, in his dreams. A question almost tumbles past his lips: _were you afraid? What did you think of before you died? What did you say before you died? Glenn—what happened before you died?_

But he cannot bring himself to say them, for he has no answers, and Glenn is only a figment of his imagination now. It might feel real, but Felix knows it’s not—_knows _that ghosts aren’t real, knows that this can’t change anything. That this won’t change anything.

So he says, so quietly, “I am nothing like you.”

Glenn only smiles back, something sad and mysterious. They both know this. This doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Felix closes his eyes. “Glenn,” he whispers, one last time.

In his dreams, his brother says his name back.

viii.

Here’s the saddest thing: Felix does not become a knight. But he becomes just like Glenn anyway.

The thunderbolt goes right through his chest and it hurts, it _hurts _more than anything else. Now Felix knows how Glenn must’ve felt; agony is seizing his limbs, pain surging under his skin, his vision going in and out. He wants to scream, to let some of the pain out, but nothing escapes his lips. He can’t talk; he can’t breathe.

_Damn it, _he thinks, and his brain can barely form coherent thoughts. His sword clatters out of his hand, and he slides to the ground, blood pooling around him. It’s too much work to keep his eyes open; it’s too much to work to _see. _So he lets his gaze flutter shut.

The dead cannot see. He expects to see nothing but darkness, but then there’s this:

Glenn. Glenn, bright and young and _smiling_, alive once more—or maybe Felix is dying, or dead, and they’re caught in this strange limbo together. All that matters is Glenn.

Glenn. With his hand held out to his younger brother, ready to guide him, and Felix is already extending his own hand, ready to be caught.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah I don't know what this is but release a Glenn portrait intsys


End file.
